Quotes of the day -- 19th April 2008

[Stephen]

I took a speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.
-- Woody Allen

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
-- Paul Valery, Tel Quel 2 (1943)

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
-- Douglas Adams, "Last Chance to See"

A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.
-- Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey in "Gaudy Night"